


Game Night

by sweetheart35



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence, Fluff, Gen, Nothing Hurts, Post-Avengers (2012), Team Bonding, team starting to work on being a family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 16:31:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19299511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetheart35/pseuds/sweetheart35
Summary: “Risk is a strategy game, Cap,” Banner murmured to Rogers quietly. “You basically try and take over the world.”“Yup,” Stark agreed. “That’s basically it. And it got too boring.”“Taking over the world got too boring,” Natasha repeated, arching a brow. She was twirling one of her blue pieces in her hand. “Of course it did.”Stark’s answering grin was slightly maniacal.





	Game Night

“Oh, hey!” The red headed woman smiled at him from where she was spreading a world map over the middle of the living room floor. “You’re...Clint, right?” Her eyes drifted to just over his shoulder and her smile became a little more cool. “Natasha.”

“Pepper,” Natasha said, brushing past Clint, jostling his shoulder lightly. “It’s good to see you.” She stepped further into the room, peering down at the map. Clint stepped closer to look as well. The map was large, taking up a fair chunk of the floor and different countries and regions have been filled in with different colors. “What are you doing?”

“It’s game night,” Pepper said, as if that explained everything. “Tony and Jim are getting snacks.” Natasha’s gaze flickered to the entryway to the kitchen.

“What are you playing?” Clint asked. He remembered Natasha mentioning Pepper after they’d met up after their respective assignments in California and New Mexico. She’d said she was sharp and efficient, high praise coming from Nat.

“Risk,” Pepper answered. She settled on a pillow, grabbed a box and pulled out a deck of custom cards with ‘STRISK’ emblazoned across the top in bright yellow.

“Cute,” Natasha said. Pepper smiled blandly.

“You know they make actual boards for Risk,” Clint said, hoping to dissipate some of the tension. Natasha clearly liked Pepper, he could tell that from the way she’d talked about her but Pepper was clearly at best ambivalent towards Nat. It was too bad. Nat could use more friends.

“Yeah, but those are too boring,” Stark said, bounding into the room, followed closely by a black man wearing an Air Force T-shirt who must’ve been Jim. Stark had packages of chips and cookies in his arms, while Jim followed closely with an assortment of sodas and what looked like iced tea. “This game is so much better.” He settled down across from Pepper while Jim sat between them.

“Pull up a seat,” Stark said, glancing up at them. Clint and Natasha glanced at each other before sitting side by side around the map between Jim and Stark. Jim passed over a couple of sodas while Pepper tossed them a bag of M&Ms. Stark made grabby hands until Jim threw a package of Oreos at his head. “JARVIS, let the others know we’re having a game night if they want to join us.”

“Of course, Sir.” And fuck that would take getting used to, Clint thought. They’d been in the Tower less than a week, only moving in after reconstruction on it had finished. Fury had all but ordered them to take up residence in the Tower, citing as their new long term assignment. Clint and Nat hadn’t been thrilled, exactly, but they at least got to stick together. Poor Rogers probably wasn’t thrilled at being uprooted again, but Clint privately felt it was best. He’d gone poking around the good captain’s quarters before New York had happened. It was depressing as shit and that was saying something from him. His quarters here were still depressing but at least they were bigger than a shoebox and had a better view. “Captain Rogers and Dr. Banner have both indicated they’ll be up shortly.”

“Thanks, J,” Stark said before pushing to his feet and nudging Pepper with one socked foot. It was weirdly charming to think that a billionaire wandered around his home in his socks like everyone else. “C’mon, these aren’t gonna be enough for everybody.” Jim got up and extended a hand to Pepper, pulling her to her feet and the three of them disappeared through the door. Clint shifted so he was leaning on Natasha, who pressed back against him. They were silent as they listened to the chatter in the kitchen.

The three of them emerged laden with more snacks at the same time the elevator opened and Banner and Rogers both stepped out.

“What are we playing?” Banner asked, peering at the map. Clint flipped up one of the cards so he could see. Rogers face was twisting in a way that said he was confused but trying not to show it. Clint manfully didn’t call him on. Nat was starting to develop a soft spot and Clint risked an elbow to the ribs if he embarrassed Rogers. “Strisk. I - uh - don’t recognize that game.”

Rogers looked relieved.

“It’s Risk with a twist,” Stark informed him, dropping back down into his original seat. Banner sat down beside him and Rogers sat on his other side

“We came up with it about ten years ago,” Pepper told them, claiming a seat between Nat and Rogers. “We have game night whenever we’re all in the same city and the only game we could ever agree on was Risk.”

“Monopoly has nearly destroyed Pepper and Tony’s relationship more than we care to recollect,” Jim chimed in.

“Tony and Jim are both dirty cheats at poker,” Pepper continued.

“And Pepper and Rhodey both say I’m not allowed to play LIFE anymore since the time I tried to start a black market specializing in babies since Rhodey could never get kids when he spun,” Stark finished. He looked at their gathered group solemnly. “Platypus really wants kids.”

“Shut the fuck up, Tony.”

Clint’s lips twitched upward in amusement. Banner looked amused and Rogers still looked a little confused but he had relaxed slightly back against the couch a bit and he looked like he was almost smiling. Pepper settled beside him gracefully, putting her between Nat and Rogers. Rhodey settled on Clint’s other side.

“Except after a while,” Pepper continued as she began divvying out tokens. Stark snatched up the red and gold ones. Clint wound up with lime green troops. “Regular Risk got too boring.”

“Risk is a strategy game, Cap,” Banner murmured to Rogers quietly. “You basically try and take over the world.”

“Yup,” Stark agreed. “That’s basically it. And it got too boring.”

“Taking over the world got too boring,” Natasha repeated, arching a brow. She was twirling one of her blue pieces in her hand. “Of course it did.”

Stark’s answering grin was slightly maniacal.

“We’ll play a basic game so Steve can get the hang of it before we throw you all under the bus,” Pepper said and Clint arched his brow. “I get the feeling it’ll be more interesting with some new blood anyway.”

“Those sound like fighting words,” he drawled and Pepper smiled at him while Jim and Stark snickered. It wasn’t a nice smile.

“There’s not going to be one,” she said calmly and Jim began dealing the cards.

“I’m surprised Happy isn’t here,” Natasha commented mildly.

“Happy refuses to play Risk with us ever since the Great South American Take-Over in 2007,” Stark answered. “We go to car shows with him instead.” He eyed Rogers who was studiously reading what he presumed were the instructions on Bruce’s phone since they didn’t have an official copy handy. “So the only unofficial rule is there are no alliances allowed.” Clint caught Nat’s eye. She didn’t smile but her eyes were just a little brighter.

Stark, Banner and Pepper were all civilians, so even though they were scary smart, they probably weren’t as good at strategy as they liked to think. Rogers and Jim would present the most of a challenge but he and Nat made a living learning how to read people and predict their moves. It might be a little cocky, but Clint figured their chances at winning were pretty good.

They were gonna wipe the floor with these guys.

\--

It took over an hour for Clint to realize what was happening.

The time had passed with good-natured jibes at each other, Stark and Jim pelting gummy bears at Pepper whenever she executed a move that sent them packing out of their territories. Banner had bowed out about twenty minutes into the game, accepting his defeat gracefully, but he had retreated to the couch instead of leaving altogether, heckling both Stark and Rogers and subtly egging them on whenever they started sniping at each other. Jim and Pepper, of course, both stuck up for Stark and since Rogers didn’t have anyone on his side, Clint and Natasha teamed up with him to give him some back up.

Banner was pretty good at reigning them back in before their words got too serious, so Clint gave him a pass for instigating shit in the first place. He wondered if either Stark or Rogers picked up on what he was doing.

Nat had a pretty solid hold on South America, with the exception of Chile, which was under Jim’s thumb. He didn’t have a great deal of troops there and the two of them seemed to be existing in some kind of uneasy truce for the time being. Nat had the majority of her troops defending the bottleneck leading up to North America. Clint had captured Australia and was trying to push Jim completely out of Asia so he could take the sea route to North America and try and oust Rogers, who was slowly building up his own defense around the sea routes and making eyes at Greenland.

Pepper had kicked Stark out of Africa and Southern Europe a while ago and instead of trying to shore up in Europe, and digging his heels into an easily defensible corner of the world like nearly everyone else on the map, he seemed to alternate between antagonizing Jim’s troops and taking potshots at Greenland, also ruled by Clint, while also occasionally trying to venture back into Southern Europe and annoy Pepper who looked like she was gearing up for a hostile takeover, if only to stop the barrage gummy bears that had been joined by skittles and M&Ms. There was a veritable lake of candy on the floor surrounding her and Clint had been dumbfounded when she’d actually reached down and scooped a couple off the floor to pop some in her mouth.

It was the needling, Clint finally decided, and the fact they were attacking each other, in addition to everyone else that was the reason it took so long for him to realize that the reason neither Jim nor Stark were digging in their heels anywhere was because they were _clearing the way for Pepper._

He through the events in his head quickly. Banner had put up a decent fight before he got kicked out of the bits of Asia and Europe he’d held, but Clint had just chalked that up to Jim and Stark both vying for control of the territory. At one point Jim had kicked Rogers out of Mongolia, Stark nabbed Russia from Natasha, resulting in some violent swearing while Stark cackled at her, and Pepper inched her way out of Italy and into Spain, Austria and France.

There had been just enough back and forth between Stark, Jim’s and Pepper’s territories that Clint hadn’t noticed Pepper’s ever growing expansion and the fact that neither of the men, at least one of which was competitive, were trying nearly as hard to gain back their territories as they could be and instead were slowly edging the others out of their own.

“What the fuck?” He demanded. The game stopped as everyone turned to stare at him. Rogers looked as though he wanted to reprimand Clint for swearing in front of Nat and Pepper, but the others just looked confused. Clint pointed a finger at Jim and Stark accusingly and then leaned around Nat to make sure Pepper also received part of his glare. “You said no alliances!”

“We did say no alliances,” Stark says immediately. “No one is in an alliance. Platypus, are we in an alliance?”

“Don’t know what he’s talking about, Tones,” Jim said casually, draping an arm across a knee and tilting his head at them.

“You’ve been clearing the way for Pepper,” Clint objected and all at once everyone’s focus was on the map in front of them. Banner leaned over from his seat on the couch for a better look. There’s nothing particularly _damning_ about the map and it’s layout, but Rogers’s eyes are narrowed as he goes over their every move in their head and Natasha was frowning. The silence was broken by the sound Pepper’s low laugh.

“To be honest, I expected you all to catch on much quicker than you did.” She sounded amused and completely relaxed. “However, no formal alliances were formed before or after game start so no rules were broken.”

“You could’ve set something up in the kitchen,” Natasha pointed out. She sounded a little annoyed, more than likely upset she’d missed what was happening. Pepper’s beatific smile turned a little smug.

“You’re right,” she conceded. “We could’ve.” She leaned towards Nat just a little bit and lowered her voice conspiratorially, even if everyone in the circle could still hear her. “But we didn’t need to.”

**Author's Note:**

> cherrysoda45.tumblr.com


End file.
